912689f3c5
Session 4 step 17 — 5 autonomy levels (0-4), PreToolUse approval-gate hook polls approval-responses.jsonl with 60s timeout, blocks on no-response. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
75 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
75 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
# Governance and Approval Gates
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PreToolUse hook implementing human oversight with configurable autonomy levels.
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Inspired by Paperclip's "autonomy is a privilege you grant" philosophy.
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## Autonomy model
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Five levels (0–4) control how much the agent auto-approves:
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| Level | Description | Auto-approves |
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|-------|-------------|---------------|
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| 0 | Full manual | Nothing — every tool requires human OK |
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| 1 | Safe ops | Read, Glob, Grep |
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| 2 | File ops | + Write, Edit within project |
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| 3 | Non-destructive | + Bash (non-destructive commands) |
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| 4 | Full autonomy | Everything — hooks act only as guardrails |
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Set `Current level: N` in `GOVERNANCE.md` to change autonomy.
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## Approval gates
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Gates are conditional checkpoints where the agent pauses and waits for
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human approval regardless of autonomy level. Configure them in `GOVERNANCE.md`:
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```
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- deploy-gate: after all tests pass AND reviewer approved
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Action: pause
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```
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## How approval flow works
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1. `approval-gate.sh` runs as a PreToolUse hook
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2. If auto-approved (based on level): exits 0, tool proceeds
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3. If gated: writes request to `governance/pending-approvals.jsonl`
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4. Polls `governance/approval-responses.jsonl` for matching response (by ID)
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5. Response `approve` → allow (exit 0), log to `approvals.log`
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6. Response `deny` → block (exit 2), log denial
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7. No response within timeout (default 60s) → block with timeout message
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## Responding to approval requests
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When an agent is waiting for approval, add to `governance/approval-responses.jsonl`:
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```json
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{"id": "<request-id>", "decision": "approve"}
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```
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or
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```json
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{"id": "<request-id>", "decision": "deny"}
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```
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## Audit trail
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All tool calls are logged to `governance/audit.log`.
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All approval decisions are logged to `governance/approvals.log`.
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## Integration
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Add to `.claude/settings.json`:
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```json
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{
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"hooks": {
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"PreToolUse": [{
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"matcher": "*",
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"hooks": [{"type": "command", "command": "bash governance/approval-gate.sh"}]
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}]
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}
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}
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```
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## Paperclip comparison
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Paperclip stores approvals in a database table with async notification.
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This implementation uses file-based polling — simpler, no service dependency,
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suitable for single-machine deployments. For multi-agent systems that need
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concurrent approval routing, consider upgrading to a queue or webhook approach.
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